FOX: Barbara Boxer: "Negro, toe the line"

DuringÂ Bill O’ReillyÂ ‘s interview last night of Harry Alford, President of the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), Alford made some insightful comments regarding Senator Barbara Boxer that served to expose the Left’s condescending attitude toward minorities. Â WhileÂ professing to advocate on behalf ofÂ racial equality and tolerance for all minorities, in practice the true leftist agendaÂ is much less inclusive.

O’Reilly introduced the segment by playing video footage of Alford’s spat with Boxer (who has consistently voted against legislation designed to expand U.S. oil- and gas-exploration) during his testimony before the Senate Environment & Public Works Hearing last week. Â The NBCC opposes the Waxman/Markey “Cap & Trade” bill, and after Alford had stated his organization’s reasons for this — including the results of anÂ NBCC-commissioned studyÂ projecting thatÂ more than 2 million jobs would be lost as a result of the legislation –Â Senator Boxer attempted to counter his argument by citing an irrelevant statement by “100 Black Men of Atlanta” and the reflexively leftist, pro-Big GovernmentNAACP. Â Alford strenuously objected, calling Boxer out for being condescending and racial.

As Mr. Alford told O’Reilly:

“It was pure race — it was like down there in Mississippi back in the bad old days when one black preacher would rise up against the big boss, he’d go find another black preacher to fight against that black preacher. Â You know — it was ugly. Â And she opened up a pit, a mud pit that I wasn’t gonna jump into.”

While O’Reilly said he respected Alford’s willingness to confront and “take down” Boxer, he also opined that he didn’t think the Senator had intended to inject race into the debate. Â Here I think O’Reilly is naive and far too willing to give leftists an undeservedÂ benefit of the doubt.Â Mr. Alford agrees:

“Actually, Bill, I think it’s her persona. Â I don’t think she can help herself. Â When she gets caught up in a rut like that or up against a wall, race comes out. Â The brainchild of Anita Hill attacking Clarence Thomas was Barbara Boxer. Â You go back to the election of 2004 and all of that garbage against Ken Blackwell,Â Secretary of State of Ohio,Â saying he rigged the election — that was Barbara Boxer. Â She loves poor black folks and she loves black folks in their place. Â She does not love … you take Condoleeza Rice who I would love my grandchildren to emulate, and the way she treated Condoleeza Rice during her confirmation hearings was just terrible.”

Bull’s-eye. Â This is what members of the left constantly do: pose as champions of minority rights while secretly holding those same minorities in contempt andÂ aimingÂ to exploit them in the service of their own (the leftists’) political power. Â As long as minorities or their advocacy organizations take politically-correct (read: leftist) positions,Â leftist operatives offer their unmitigatedÂ approval and reverent support. Â Let these same minority groups express a position contrary to the leftist agenda, however, and suddenly they are cast out of the communion of Saints.

This scenario is all-too-familiar to me as a conservative/libertarian gay man who has been politically active since my college days in the mid-1980s. Virtually without exception I have been shunned by members of organizations posing as gay civil rights groups which are in reality nothing more than fully-owned subsidiaries of the Democrat Party. Â As soon as it becomes known within a group of these individuals that I hold generally conservative views — a fact I’ve never attempted to conceal — their disdain for me is palpable. Â I’ve long since lost count of the number of times I’ve been accused of being a “self-loathing” gay person simply for not toeing the politically-correct line. Â It’s something I’ve come to expect and even to welcome as an opportunity to articulate the reasons for my positions, but the intellectual vacuity of the left never ceases to amaze me. Â Listening to their slavish recitation of leftist groupthink, it’s hard not toÂ recall the pod-people from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Harry Alford is hardly the first conservative black man the left has attempted to discredit, and he certainly won’t be the last. Â It’s always entertaining, however, to watchÂ leftist politicians (like Barbara Boxer) have their own squalid agendas exposed and thrown back in their faces when they least expect it. Â If only more prominent Republicans would set aside their fear of media mockery and take a lesson from Harry Alford, they might be able to increase their numbers in Congress come the 2010 elections.